


The man in shadow

by vermicious_knid



Category: Prisoners (2013)
Genre: Backstory, Flashbacks, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-12
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-04 11:06:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1080287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vermicious_knid/pseuds/vermicious_knid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Backstory/ snippets of flashbacks</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

December, 1978

 

St.Joseph hospital, Dickinson, North Dakota.

 

The cold weather makes it hard for the poor, the drug addicts and the homeless to survive during winter. The hospital staff knows this more than anyone. Some 700 hundred people die every year of hypothermia. They are not given much attention if they arrive to the E.R alive or not, but it is different if there is a child.

A woman is found and dropped off, barely conscious. She has been frozen and confused for hours, but she is given a bed and an IV drop in any case. It’s still Christmas. The nurses recognize her, an addict who comes to get her puncture marks cleaned up. In her arms they discover an infant, so small and tightly wrapped up in a grimy blanket it almost goes by unnoticed.

 

The woman dies, but the baby lives.

 

* * *

 

There isn't a name on the baby's hospital tags, just a number – 2216. His skin is very red from the sudden increase of warmth, and he is put in an incubator. He doesn’t start screaming for another five hours.

 

Outside it is still dark and the cold winter is crushing.

 

Once 2216 is stabilized, his skin is shown to be very pale. Somewhat underdeveloped (his neck muscles are weak) and malnourished, but shows promise of full recovery. No living relatives are to be found.

 

**1.**

Nobody wants to adopt a baby who seems ill.

He isn’t really, but there’s a slight cough he carries with him that the doctors have assured will disappear with age and proper care. But finding a foster home willing to take him in proves to be difficult. For almost 3 years he is taken care of by nurses and long suffering social workers, and he is John Doe. When nurse Viola sits him down one day (he was given a picture book of butterflies, but he has started to learn that nothing belongs to him) and tells him gently that he is going to live with a new mom and dad, he cries until they come to collect him. He stays with them for 4 months.

When he comes to the orphanage, his eyes are dark and he spends a lot of time hiding under his bed.

 

**4.**

When he is four the priests start calling him Loki, as they have named all other children based on Norse mythology. They say it is because of his fondness of stealing others toys, and for hiding himself so well.

 

He doesn’t play like the other children, he doesn’t understand.

 

He is desperate to keep something close, that’s why he takes them. But it doesn’t work the way he wants it to, and eventually he is punished. The priests have started looking at him in a funny way, and he is not quite sure what it means.

 

* * *

**32.**

People think he doesn’t like dogs, from the way his eyes violently twitch when they bark. But it is not true. The sound just triggers old memories. Sometimes he goes down to the kennel at the station if he has time to visit them. Dogs are loyal, trustworthy. He finds it almost meditating to just sit with them. But when asked if he wants to take one home he’ll always say no.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

 

_"Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality."_

— Edgar Allan Poe

 

 

**7.**

He likes hospitals, always have.

While others can’t stand the smell or the bright lights, he welcomes it – it’s the only place he knows to be safe. He imagines that it cannot be much unlike heaven. He used to like the nurses too, they were kind and gentle. But he can’t let himself like it too much, now. He won’t make it when he gets out, back there.

 

He has seen other children, older than him, hurt themselves to get there. To be safe, for a little while. But God doesn’t approve of that, the fathers tell him. He’s too scared to say anything, only nods.

 

 

**8.**

He doesn’t exactly make friends, but he is watchful of the younger kids. Makes sure they stay outdoors a lot. He remembers Neal.

Neal came from a really good place, and he was always happy. He would watch neal play in the sandbox, shaping castles and fake food. It was fascinating, this playing thing. He wished he could learn. When they cross the street on the way to school he makes sure Neal holds his hand. He tries to show Neal how to hide, but he is only 5 years old and so he just laughs, doesn’t understand. Loki is glad of that, in a way.

 

He is adopted by a nice young couple only a few days after Christmas, and Loki curls up in his old bed and tries not feel. He has been getting very good at it lately.

 

 

**11.**

He’s not ill really, they assure him. The social workers won’t tell him why foster parents are suddenly reluctant to take him in. But he listens at the door and hears words like “unruly” and “too quiet” and “is he? Good god”. He scuffs his shoes against the carpet, the pattern looking like pale blue waves. He doesn’t remember the last time he really looked into a mirror.

 

 

**15.**

They’ve put him in isolation.

He’s so still in his cell that the night guard outside starts checking in more often, as if he’s baffled.

It’s sometime after midnight perhaps, but time doesn’t mean anything around here.

Davidson called him a faggot, so what was he supposed to do? Let him? He isn’t usually this violent, but this place thrives on it. Like a pull in your stomach, as if gravity is somehow making everything inside you ten times heavier. Prison is probably the same, if not worse.

 

He finds the isolation cell more welcoming than anything else outside of it. The others often use the room as a physical and emotional outlet.

 

He stares resolutely at his naked toes, refusing to move. He blinks twice, rapidly.

 

 

**16.**

For some reason, the night guard (Joe) has started talking to him.

Just small things, really. He’s being led by another guard inside the gates and he’s reading the paper when he says “less rain outside today, I think spring is finally coming.”

Another day he’s washing his hands outside the mess hall, and Joe pauses to lean against a wall beside him like Loki is a familiar face at a party full of strangers.

 

“Geesh, that’s the last time I eat 14 spring rolls in one go. Well, happy easter kid!” he says and claps him on the shoulder before moving on.

 Loki has no idea what to think.

 

 He tries to break up a fight two days later out in the fitness room. It doesn’t help, and he’s sent to isolation for a third time.

 

 There’s a small book waiting for him on the floor when he enters. With some difficulty, he reads it.


	3. 3

_O God! can I not grasp_

_Them with a tighter clasp?_

_O God! can I not save_

_One from the pitiless wave?_

-Edgar allen poe

 

 

**31.**

He’s been driving for about two hours or so, it always rains so much this time of year. The radio is playing the local news.

Nobody knows about these visits he makes, he has no reason to tell anyone.

His mother’s grave hasn’t changed since last year. There is nobody else here, no other visitors but him. He blinks twice before looking at his watch. That is no surprise either, since it’s about 6 am in the morning.

He brings flowers, because that’s what you are supposed to bring isn’t it? He doesn’t know what she would have liked, but he likes to think her favorite color was blue. There’s nobody to contradict him on it anyway.

 

**16.**

In school, Loki is a bit of a wild card. The students know him as someone you don’t fuck with, he’s got drugs on him, just ask him yourself if you don’t believe me. He makes girls break up with their boyfriends just like that, and did you know about his tattoos? He’s talked shit to the principal more than once, and if he fights there will always be blood. Usually, people tend to avoid him.

 

But Mrs. Clark tells a different story.

 

She had been working an hour late after the last bell rang, and had just stepped out of the class room when someone bumped into her from behind. She had not even heard him coming, weren’t students supposed to be loud? Most of her notes got knocked to the ground in the process. She had turned to reprimand whoever it was, but stopped short when she saw this nervous boy. She almost didn’t recognize him.

He carried himself differently, hunched almost. He looked spooked, as if he’d just woken up after a nightmare. His eyes are so very big, so young. He looks down at the notes on the floor, as if they’re going to pick themselves up if he keeps staring hard enough. “Sorry.” He huffs quietly. The usual bravado in his voice is gone, she doesn’t know this boy. Mrs. Clark softens her voice before replying “Uhm, that’s alright. I’ll just –“ Then he suddenly bends down to pick them all up for her, his eyes never meeting hers. She blinks at him, somehow worried.

_He remember hiding toys in the attic this way, of dropping them on the stairs and he has to gather them up before someone takes them, they will take -_

When he stands up and hands them back to her, his eyes are indifferent and closed off. “Thank you.” She says, and quickly follows with “Have you finished the book assignment?” because she can’t let him turn away just yet. He nods, looking at the way she gathers the papers to her chest.

“I finished it, handed it in just yesterday.”

“I hope you chose a book, not a magazine.” She teases, but instantly regrets it. He looks right at her for a moment with something like surprise – but she knows it isn’t. Then he unzips his backpack and swiftly hands her a small, battered thing – she has seen so many in her lifetime, and she isn’t even a Christian. The cover is a sky blue, and a small golden cross shines at it’s center. She smoothes her thumb over it, and then she understands.

 

**3.**

It is wet where he hides, but the forest smells sweet and good.

His right hand is very red and it hurts to move his fingers. He’s just small enough to cower inside the tree trunk, the rough barking now distant at last. He hopes he can stay here and that the loud man with his large fists won’t find him.

He falls asleep to the sound of something dripping, and a wailing man singing on the radio about a lord that comes and goes.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some details of this chapter is heavily inspired by the book "Daddy Love" by Joyce Carol Oates, which deals with the subject of child kidnapping.

_But he grew old --_

_This knight so bold --_

_And -- o'er his heart a shadow_

_Fell as he found_

_No spot of ground_

_That looked like El Dorado._

 

-Edgar Allen Poe

 

 

**30.**

Officer Spiels confirmed that there was a body of a small child, found by classmates facedown in a stairwell. Pale blond, almost wispy hair, backpack at the bottom of the stairs, training shoes, rigor mortis just passed as paramedics arrived later on. Her backpack was full of paper wrapped blue chewing gum. Interview with students tells that they saw nobody unfamiliar at the school that day who could have given it to her. Did she have any contact with strangers on her way to school? No, her mother drove her to the entrance.

Signs at the crime scene combined with the blood test conducted the next day confirmed food poisoning, possibly the candy found at the site but nothing is positive yet. Froth at the mouth, eyes wide open. Seems to have fallen down the stairs, head and legs are at an odd angle. Skin turned light blue which points to argyria poisoning, silver and a lethal dose of arsenic. Some apparent flood has the roads cut off, so the paramedics can’t get to her until evening. Loki stays close to the body, scribbling and going through notes from the interviews they made earlier. The lights in the building are all off, except for the one in this particular stairwell, trained on the girl like a spotlight on a stage. The girl’s eyes are closed, but she doesn’t look peaceful.

Her right shoe is missing.

 

**27.**

When they lose track of one of the charged suspects who sexually abused a minor, a young officer (who up til now people have been calling only “rookie”) disappears for a few days – then a week.

He returns with the suspect slightly bruised in unseen places, cuffed up in the backseat of his car. People start to distrust his judgment. He pummels through these cases like he’s got something to prove, at first people think it’s vanity, being the best. But they see how he traces their names on paper, the way his eyes go deceptively calm right before an interrogation.It was back when he was still the rookie, less pressed shirts and more brass knuckles.

People didn’t dare call him mad, not to his face. He’s grateful for that much, at least.

His statement regarding the sexual molester Ray Parr is still inconclusive and highly classified information. Other officers who witnessed the fire have had to fill in the blanks the best they could. He’d been chasing a pedophile for almost three months, tracking him to different locations. The charged suspect had been keeping children locked up in cages with no room to move their limbs, leaving them for days on end. Coloform rags gotten from the vet had been stuffed into their mouths to keep them quiet, docile. He cornered the man in a vacated building, and the suspect had set it on fire. He’d allegedly planned it beforehand, as several bottles filled with petrol was found at the scene . People don’t know whether to feel disgust or pity for him now.

Officer Loki came out with first degree burns up to his elbows and parts of his hair was singed off. The suspect barely survived with third degree burns from the waist down, and due to extreme shock hasn’t spoken more than 12 words since the incident.

 

**31.**

He doesn’t have many hobbies to speak of, but he does read. He takes the time to go down to the city library, sometimes. He stays and copies out bits that he likes, keeps it in a small, nondescript diary. He rarely speaks of god.

They have a yellow plastic container at work with toys and crayons for children to distract themselves with, and if he happens to pass by it he looks to see if something is missing or needs to be replaced. Things like that matters to a kid, you know?

 

**32.**

The office in Jersey isn’t usually this somber, or this empty of people for that matter. But the recent discovery of the body of a missing little girl has been keeping everyone busy at the crime scene. Only a handful of officers are in today, finishing late paperwork or dealing with phone calls from bloodthirsty reporters, wanting details and taped phone calls from the tearful parents. In a lull of calm around noon, some people gather around the crappy coffee maker for a refill.

“Yeah well fuck you Martha ok? I’m doing it later. “ Stevenson calls after her, muttering the last bit to himself.

Her dry, amused voice echoes to him down the hall. “You’re doing it later, later in life…”

“Troup B still out?” he asks James, who nods briskly.

“Still out, I don’t think they’ll be back until later tonight actually. The parents are coming in early tomorrow.” He says and stays silent for a beat.

”they’ll find their peace, eventually.” James says, his voice a bit older, weary. Jesus Christ, he hopes he’ll never have to say that to himself. Stevens swallows hard, his mind on the grieving parents – but also on absent colleagues.

“ Some don’t.” he says, his voice unusually bleak.

Officer Stevens glances over to the now empty cubicle at the end of the room with something like pity on his face, even though the very notion of stevens feeling pity for anyone is ridiculous. But it’s there all the same. james sighs shortly and mumbles real quick before he takes another sip of dishwater coffee.

“Yeah, some don’t.”

 

**87.**

When they come to clean out his apartment and collect his things once he’s passed on, all his personal items fills about half a cardboard box. The landlord is accused of stealing, because nobody could have lived this long and not have more to show for it. If they found an old and tattered picture book of butterflies in that box, they’d perhaps wonder if he ever had any children.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think I was the only one leaving the theater completely blown away by this movie. I found Loki to be a very interesting character, and the more I thought about him the more I felt the need to write something down.


End file.
